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Merson Joins UN Panel for Discussion of Lessons From the Response to AIDS

Dr. Michael Merson speaks on the history of the AIDS pandemic.
Dr. Michael Merson speaks on the history of the AIDS pandemic.

In a Jan. 24 event at the United Nations Secretariat in New York City, Michael Merson, founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute and co-author of “The AIDS Pandemic: Searching for a Global Response,” presented key findings from his book and participated in a panel on how to apply lessons from the AIDS response to other areas of global health.

“I wrote the book to tell how nearly 500 staff in the Global Program on AIDS worked tirelessly and with incredible commitment to confront AIDS in the most difficult period of the pandemic’s history,” Merson said in opening the panel discussion.

Sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Global Health Strategies, the event featured Merson’s co-author, Stephen Inrig (director of the graduate program in Healthcare Policy and Management at Mount Saint Mary's University), Tom Frieden (former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), author and journalist Laurie Garrett and global health experts from UNAIDS, Global Health Strategies and UNDP.

The full discussion can be found below.